Step 1: Create your work
A creative rewriting of one of the following poems:
[Option 1]
Fighting
Translated by Arthur Waley
Last year we were fighting at the source of the San-kan;
This year we are fighting at the Onion River road.
We have washed our swords in the surf of Indian seas;
We have pastured our horses among the snows of T’ien Shan.
Three armies have grown gray and old,
Fighting ten thousand leagues away from home.
The Huns have no trade but battle and carnage;
They have no pastures or ploughlands,
But only wastes where white bones lie among yellow sands.
Where the house of Ch’in built the great wall that was to keep away the Tartars,
There, in its turn, the house of Han lit beacons of war.
The beacons are always alight; fighting and marching never stop.
Men die in the field, slashing sword to sword;
The horses of the conquered neigh piteously to Heaven.
Crows and hawks peck for human guts,
Carry them in their beaks and hang them on the branches of withered trees.
Captains and soldiers are smeared on the bushes and grass;
The General schemed in vain.
Know therefore that the sword is a cursèd thing
Which the wise man uses only if he must.
[Option 2]
The White River at Nan-Yang
Translated by Arthur Waley
Wading at dawn the White River’s source,
Severed a while from the common ways of men,
To islands tinged with the colours of Paradise,
Where the river sky drowns in limpid space.
While my eyes were watching the clouds that travel to the sea.
My heart was idle as the fish that swim in the stream.
With long singing I put the sun to rest:
Riding the moon,came back to my fields and home.
–
Step 2: Write about your work
Once you have produced your creative work, please address the following items in a short 300 to 400-word essay.
Identify the specific piece of art, literature, drama, music, dance etc., that you were imitating. If you are imitating a specific artist or author, provide the name of one of their works. If you imitate a particular time period or type of work, identify it.
Explain why you used this example as your inspiration.
Specifically explain what elements, techniques etc., you used from the original piece in your own, what you changed or modified and why.
Provide some general comments based on what you did in this exercise about how elements from the Humanities can be incorporated into your personal and job-related creative and thinking processes.